The "Bausani edition" is often prized less for the translation itself and more for its extensive introductory essay and footnotes. In these sections, Bausani addresses the historical context of the Revelation, the structure of the text, and the challenges of translating a book that Muslims consider to be the literal, untranslatable word of God. He famously explored the concept of "Islamic monotheism" not just as a theological dogma, but as a revolutionary social and existential shift in the 7th-century Arabian Peninsula. Legacy in Islamic Studies
In the vast library of Western translations of the Quran, most renderings fall into two categories: the philologically precise but arid, and the theologically reverent but obscure. Alessandro Bausani’s Il Corano (first published by Sansoni in 1955, later by Rizzoli/BUR) stands apart as a revolutionary artifact. Unlike his predecessors who sought to extract meaning from the Arabic text, Bausani attempted the impossible: to translate not just the message of the Quran, but its music . His work transforms the translation of a sacred text from a mere act of linguistic substitution into a profound literary and theological argument about the nature of divine revelation. Bausani Il Corano.pdf
Until the copyright expires in the mid-21st century, remains a mythic file—a digital ghost haunting the forums and footnotes of Quranic studies. It is not just a document; it is a monument to how one Italian scholar transformed the West’s understanding of Islam’s holy book. The "Bausani edition" is often prized less for
: You can find a detailed analysis and introduction to Bausani's work in this scholarly PDF from IRIS (Università Ca' Foscari Venezia) . Legacy in Islamic Studies In the vast library